Hardening of the heads of railway rails



Jan. 28, 1930. J. LUKAsczYK y HARDENING OF THE HEADS 0F RAILWAY RAILS Filed 001'.. 25, 1928 the present instance continuously iowing wastraightening operation, as was the case with Patented Jan. 28, 1930 UNITED STATESA PATENT OFFICE JACOB LUKAsczYK, or OEERPFALZ, BAVARIA, GERMANY HARDENING OF THE HADS OF RAILWAY RAILS Application led October 25, 1928, Serial No. 315,025, and in Germny January 7, 1928.

This invention relates to a clamping device for use in hardening the heads of railway rails, which is characterized by a clamping support combined with a crane and tongs 5 mechanism coacting with the said support.

The tongs mechanism is operated by separate actuating means and presses the rails rmly against the saddle pieces on the longitudinal supporting member of the clamping l 10 device, thus holding them absolutely straight.

According to a second constructional form the tongs mechanism is mounted on an inverting apparatus which is capable of turning freely on its axis. A drum rolling on rails may also be used as an inverting apparatus. These known arrangements are only suitable for receiving a single rail. Hence with a single apparatus the rails which are rolled from la steel ingot can only be treated successively after being cut to standard lengths with a hot saw. This is however, not possible, as the rails which have to be treated late-r would in the meantime cool oli too much. In order to be able to harden simultaneously all the rails cut from a steel ingot with the hot saw, as many apparatus wouldv be requiredas there are rails to be hardened. In

that case, however, as needs no further proof, a great deal of space would be required, quite apart from the fact that the provision and maintenance of numerous clamping and securing devices would entail a great expenditure.

The present invention has for its object to provide a new apparatus capable of simultaneously hardening any number of rails cut to length. For this purpose a suitable number of clamping devices for simultaneously holding a plurality of rails are provided on a single, common supporting member and this supporting member, after the rails to be hardened have been secured, has a suitable motion imparted to it, so that the heads of the rails only are immersed in the hardening fluid, in

ter, the level of which is always the same.

The arrangement. might also be such that the common clamping device, as soon as it has gripped the rails to be hardened, performs only a portion of thezmotions referred to while the trough with the hardening fiuid also has a motion imparted to it, being raised, lowered or moved laterally. In this case the rails to be simultaneously' hardened are conveyed horizont-ally by means of a roller bed to the clamping apparatus, where they are placed head downwards and foot upwards, the foot being gripped by the tongs mechanism of the clamping device.

A further new arrangement for simultaneously hardening a plurality of rails consists of an inverting apparatus having arms, which engage between the rollers of the roller bed, the rails to be hardened being pressed, and held straight in their normal position, that is head up and foot down, by a tongs mechanism at the foot, against a number of saddles provided on the arms of the inverting apparatus. i

In the accompanying drawing a constructional example of the new device is shown in section.

l is an arm acting as a support for the securing devices. These securing devices may for instance be tongs-like mechanisms 2 which are actuated by compressed air or the like. The arm with the tongs mechanisms forms a single unit with a toothed segment 4 capable of turning about a shaft 3. This toothed segment may have motion imparted to it by a rack, not shown in the drawing. 5 is a stop member for the arm, 6 are the hardening troughs and 7 the rails to be hardened. The right-hand side of the drawing shows the clamping device in the position in which the rails are gripped by the foot. The rails to be hardened, which have been sawn to standard lengths, are placed head upwards and oot downwards, that is-in their normal position, on the roller bed behind the hot saw. and are conveyed in this position to the hardening apparatus. As the rails with their head upwards and foot downwards are conveyed along the roller bed, they will remain straight and will not require any special the earlier appara-tus. After the rails have arrived at the clamping devices they are gripped at the foot by the tongs mechanism 8 and are pressed firmly against saddles on the arm 1 of the inverting apparatus. By this means they are hel in a. perfectly straight direction. Ol--the inverting apparatus being turned throu h in any suitable manner, for instance y a rack, not shown in the drawing, until its free end rests on the stop member 5, all the clamped rails will be immersed uniformly and to the same depth in the agitated hardening water which is maintained by a continuous supply and overflow at a relatively low temperature and alwa s at the same level. It is important that on y the rail head shall be lowered into the hardening fluid, to exactly the same depth in the case of all the rails, as this is essential for obtaining uniform hardening. 1

After the rails have been chilled to a suficient extent, the apparatus is turned back again through 180, the tongs mechanism released, and the rails conveyed away again by the roller bed. The arrangement is then ready to receive fresh rails from the next steel ingot.

It is obvious that the device, when in the posit-ion shown at the right of the drawing, must for reasons of convenience, lie between the rollers of the roller bed, as al convenient conveyance of the rails is possible only in this manner.

What I claim is:

A device for simultaneously hardening the heads of a plurality of railway rails in a hardening iuid, comprising in combination a plurality of arms capable of turning jointly about their axis, saddles for the rails on the said arms, tongs mechanisms mounted pivotall)7 on the said arms, capable of gripping the rails and pressing them, when in their nor mal position foot downwards, against the saddles of the arms, means for inverting the device with the rails for immersing the rails head downwards in the hardening Huid and means for accurately limiting the depth of immersion, as and for the purpose set forth.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification.

JACOB LUKASCZYK. 

